Customer Reviews

Little America: Australia, the 51st State

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I am an American living in Australia, and was intrigued by the cover of this book while browsing at a local library in Sydney. However, don't make the same mistake as me. Don't waste your time with this book.

The author's premise is that America is evil, Australia is evil, whilst developing nations are morally pure and righteous. There is no acknowledgement that the purpose of a nation-state is to protect its people and advance its own interests. There is no meaningful discussion of why developing nations have failed to lift themselves out of poverty; ie., corruption, human rights abuse, absence of rule of law, protectionism.

His most laughable conclusion is that anyone making over $30,000 per year is "effectively killing children in poor countries." It follows that the author's solution is to downsize consumption and transfer wealth from the rich to poor. Indeed, he's more interested in wealth destruction, than creation.

Ironically the author himself is enjoying the fruits of our capitalist system. This is his second book and he has been a university lecturer for over 35 years. Has he donated his salary and book royalties over $30,000 per year to the poor?

This is a sad piece of literary effort. That smacks of a chattering classes moral arrogance without giving serious contemplation to the hard evidence of economic social value systems that actually afford growth, the creation of wealth and liberty. In as much as Australia actually does mirror the US and has departed significantly away from the Crown, it has matured and given its population much more in the way of enabling them to become masters of their own destiny in more significant ways than before as more Australians have become shareholders, homeowners and their income has grown. They too have shared in picking up the cost of expanding freedom. And under Howards leadership will continue to do so. If the relationship becomes closer with the US then hopefully that will because the rationale of becomming closer is linked to a value scheme and economic model encompassing individual liberty in a manner not before appreciate by the common man and that has generated its own magnetism. This book weighs in on the populist anti bush anti america anti achievement Lefty cheap journalism that harks back to another book; UK the 51st state. But tends to make an even sadder storey. The ultimate conclusions noentheless are that of an emerging relative cohesion of the Anglosphere countries is a natural progression which is a function of not only language and culture but more importantly that love of individual liberty that is so aptly encompassed by the likes of Friedman and Hayek.If Australia was to share appropriatly in the values of the US then becoming part of the United States by including another "7 states" it would certainly have as much influence if not more so than it currently does, and certainly such a move would be a benefit to the Australian men and women as they benefit from that much more.(As income levels align i.e Australia goes upwards...) The US too would benefit as the removal of protection from beef, mutton and wool etc would be scrapped from the current trade pact which allowed such clauses to be included with a slow annual rate of reduction. No this book is sad and intellectually telling of a period that harks back to a period of soviet accommodation and cultural relativism where fundamental principles of liberty are at stake and the Australians like the Americans realize that somethings are worth defending. So Yes without much ado bring it on and why not,the differences between California and New York are capable of accommodation, why the inclusion of another 20 million to influence the one political process that the world really watches can't be that bad...